PurposeThis study aims to investigate the extent of adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) in university libraries in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachPostal survey was the instrument used for data collection. Almost 60 per cent of the University Librarians out of the 29 university libraries surveyed completed their questionnaires.FindingsThe results of the survey show that only six university libraries are fully “computerized”, nine are “about to be computerized”; seven of the surveyed libraries have installed local area networks, five have online public access catalogue and only four libraries provide internet service. The major obstacles that influence effective adoption of ICT in university libraries are inadequate funds and the poor state of electricity in Nigeria.Practical implicationsThe federal government should increase the present level of funding of Nigerian university to improve the library development fund, which is the major source of funding available to university libraries. The poor state of electricity in Nigeria should also be improved by the federal government for sustainable adoption of ICT by university libraries.Originality/valueThe paper proposes that computer networking of university libraries is feasible and recommends the development of the Nigerian university libraries network and academic libraries network.

This study investigated the efficacy of conceptual change Pedagogy on students' cognitive achievement and interest in biology. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. A non-equivalent, pretestpost-test quasi experimental design was employed. Four secondary schools were randomly selected in Calabar Municipality and Calabar south Local Government Areas, Cross River State. Two schools were randomly assigned to either experimental or control group. The experimental group students were exposed to the use of the conceptual change pedagogy while the control group students were exposed to the conventional instructional method. In each selected school, one intact arm of SSII class was randomly selected for participation as experimental or control group. Two hundred and seventy-two SSII biology students from the four secondary schools constituted the sample size. A sample note of lesson for effective teaching using conceptual change pedagogy was developed by the researchers. Two researcher-developed instruments named Biology Achievement Test (BAT) and Biology Interest Inventory (BII) were used for data collection. Their validity and their reliability indices were established using Cronbach alpha. Mean scores and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses. The result revealed that students taught biology using the conceptual change pedagogy outperformed that taught biology using conventional method. The students in the experimental group were more interested in the subject as compared to their counterparts in the control group because they were able to deal with their misconceptions about the concepts.

This study reports on a survey conducted to explore the awareness and extent of utilization of The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) database resources by academic staff at the faculty of Agriculture, University of Calabar, Nigeria. Structured Questionnaire was designed and used for data collection. Eighty copies of the questionnaire were randomly distributed to respondents in their offices; 60 copies of these were retrieved and used for data analysis (with 75.0% response rate). The findings of the study indicate that although vast majority (88.3%) of academic staff in the faculty of Agriculture are aware of TEEAL database resources, their utilization is rather low (46.7%) in teaching and research, the frequency of usage is equally low, as most (46.7%) respondents use these databases "occasionally". From the findings of the study, most respondents used TEEAL abstracts for research and publication (80.0%), for better research output (53.3%) for insights to various topics for lectures (50.0%) and keep abreast with current trends in the field of study (50.0%). Major factors that impede awareness and utilization of TEEAL databases by academic staff of the faculty of Agriculture, University of Calabar, Nigeria include lack of awareness of the available databases by the university library, lack of access to TEEAL databases in the University library, lack of time to spend in searching TEEAL databases in the Library and inadequate information skills to use TEEAL, and improper orientation on the use.

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